The approaches described in this section could be pursued, but are not necessarily approaches that have been previously conceived or pursued. Therefore, unless otherwise indicated herein, the approaches described in this section are not prior art to the claims in this application and are not admitted to be prior art by inclusion in this section.
The difficulty in troubleshooting network elements such as routers, switches, computers, and other electronic devices is exacerbated by the difficulty in obtaining accurate data from the devices when they are installed in customer or end user networks or systems. One approach to obtaining accurate data that may be used by a vendor of the network elements is having a customer service engineer (CSE) attempt to connect to a device and obtain the data directly from the device. A problem with this approach is that it is often difficult or impossible for a CSE to connect to the device. For example, if the device is behind a firewall and the CSE is outside the protected network that is owned or operated by the end user, then the firewall will have to be temporarily reconfigured to allow the CSE to bypass the firewall.
Another approach is to have end users collect data for themselves. The approach overcomes the need for a CSE to have access to a device. A problem with this approach, however, is that it requires the end user to have expertise in connecting to the device and collecting data from the device. Another problem with this approach is that data will often need to be collected over a period of time or from multiple devices simultaneously, and end users will need great diligence and expertise in order to collect the data at the precise intervals needed. Yet another problem with this approach is that the end user may not have the expertise to collect the correct data. Without the correct data the problems with the devices cannot be solved.
Another problem with both approaches is that the CSE uses personal knowledge to detect problems with the device based on the collected data. The problem with the use of personal knowledge to solve the problems is that the process takes too much time and does not utilize the collective knowledge of the entire team of CSEs and other experts.
Based on the foregoing, there is a clear need for a solution that does not require a CSE to connect to a device; does not require end user expertise in connecting to and collecting data from the device; does not require diligence and expertise in order to collect the correct data at the precise intervals needed; and does not constrain the solution of device problems to the knowledge and available time of a particular CSE.